Golden Age Diary

April 02, 2006 | 05:18 AM
Golden Age Diary
The Golden Age Diary will be an open thread, in which I will post a diary as comments rather than posts. Viewers are welcome to post comments, and I look forward to haing your feedback.

I met Cate Blanchette today, and after a very long time, we chatted in a relaxed informal atmosphere. She is such an instinctual and probing actress, that it reminded me of why I like to make movies. Till I started to explore the script with her, the lines were just typed words on paper that I fretted about. Suddenly as we discussed the meaning behind the words, the sentences and our attitude to them, the words jumped out at me and became life.

I have a concern though. All my actors are working so much that i am not going to get much rehearsal time. Especially Clive Owen who joins us 4 weeks into the shoot. I have never worked with him before and though he is a terrific actor, he and I need to get to know each other more. For the creation of a film depends much on the trust that is created between the actor and the director. Where the lines between the actor and the director blur.

Raleigh is complicated role. On the surface he is an adventurer. Audacious, charming and fearless. But underneath that, underneath the lines and the fearlessness who is he really ? What is his subtext ? I need to sit down and work that out with Clive.

Shekhar